One Wes Moore is a writer and investment banker who lives in New York City and can joke about a recent snowstorm that turned the streets of Manhattan into ski runs. Another Wes Moore is serving a life sentence for murder and will never leave a maximum-security prison in Maryland.

Both men were raised by single mothers in the same part of Baltimore and had early discipline problems. The fact that one of them became a Rhodes scholar and a White House fellow who addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the other participated in a robbery that resulted in the death of a police officer and father of five is more than an irony or a coincidence to the Moore who's not in prison. It obsessed him and raised questions he couldn't answer: What leads people in one direction or another? Could our paths have been reversed? Why him and not me?

Moore the writer befriended Moore the prisoner and explored their lives in "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates," a book that has started countless discussions about race and class and fate since it was published last year. It's just out in paperback and is the 2011 selection of Everybody Reads, a community-wide reading program sponsored by the Multnomah County Library. Discussion groups will be held throughout February, and Moore will be in Portland on March 7 for an event at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. He answered a few questions about his book, his life and the other Wes Moore.

You've done several of these community-reading events, haven't you?

I love them. It's such an honor to be part of a larger conversation. I hoped the book would inspire discussions, and it's exceeded all my expectations.

I've also gone to quite a few universities, where all the freshmen are assigned to read it. I always get a lot of great questions at those.

Like what?

What are the larger lessons that can be learned? How has going through this whole process changed me? What are Wes and some of the other people I talk about in the book doing now?

OK, let's talk about a couple of those. How did this change you?

In a wide variety of ways. It forced me to think about things I hadn't thought about before. I'm a much more reflective person than I was before. I don't take the sacrifices other people made for me for granted.

He's still at Jessup (Correctional Institute). His daily life has not really changed at all. He's trying to develop a better relationship with his children. He's doing OK, but the reality of his situation weighs on him ... I've received thousands of letters and lots of them are addressed to him. I've made photocopies of them and sent them on to him, and that's made a great impact on him, that people know who he is and are interested in him.

Have you gotten a lot of negative letters or comments?

I've hardly gotten any reaction along those lines. A few people have been concerned about the (murdered) police officer, but I was very careful not to glorify Wes or excuse what happened in any way, and I think most people understand that.

What is a more common reaction?

It's been incredibly humbling and gratifying, not just what people have said and the discussions that have started but the increased attention to some of the organizations that I mention at the end of the book, like the U.S. Dream Academy (an organization that works to help the children of incarcerated parents). When I hear from young people that this is the first book they've read or from a parent that says they started a conversation with their child, that means everything to me.

You're from west Baltimore, where the HBO series "The Wire" was set. Do you get a lot of questions about it?

I do get quite a few questions about "The Wire." I think there are some of the same type of lessons in it as there are in my book. A lot of people in Baltimore aren't big fans of "The Wire," but I think it's great TV and great journalism. I think it really captured the reality of what goes on. It is TV and it is drama so of course there are liberties, but I think the way they took on the drug trade and education and government and the press was really important.